Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre Author:Walter Kaufmann What is Existentialism? It is perhaps the most misunderstood of modern philosophic positions -- misunderstood by reason of its broad popularity and general unfamiliarity with its origins, representatives, and principles. — Existential thinking does not origniate with Jean Paul Sartre. It has prior religious literary, and philosophic origins. I... more »n its narrowest formulation it is a metaphysical doctrine, arguing as it does that any definiton of his existence. In Heidegger, it affords a view of Being in its totality; in Kierkegaard an approach to that inwardness indispensable to authentic religious experience; for Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Rilke the existential situation bears the stamp of modern man's alienation, uprootedness, and absurdity; to Sartre it has vast ethical and political implications.
Walter Kaufmann, author of Nietzsche (Meridian Books), is eminently qualified to present and interpret the insights of existentialism as they occur and are deepened by the major thinkers who express them.
All Meridian Books are Smyth-Sewn for Durability« less